The Romantic Herb Garden

by Caroline Holmes

The must-have ingredient of any garden, herbs have long been the stalwarts of the cottage garden, imparting fragrance and health as well as flavor to beds and borders. However, today's garden designers have realized that herbs can also help to shape or be a key visual element in a garden. The Romantic Herb Garden shows how you can design with herbs, using these plants in an innovative and bold way as either a backdrop to or even the star of any garden scheme. In recent years the adaptability of herbs has enabled them to be used in healing gardens, herbaceous borders, paving, grazing gardens, walls and raised-bed planting, containers, and window boxes. This book shows how they can be used to great effect in gardens large and small, either smartly clipped for formal effects or allowed to go wild for a relaxed, been-there-forever look. In larger gardens herbs can give instant effect, providing color and texture while shrubs and herbaceous perennials settle in. In small gardens herbs can transform paving, walls, and flowerbeds, in full sun or shade, within a few months. After looking at the many ways to use herbs, author Caroline Holmes discusses schemes that show herbs to their best advantage while working in harmony with the environment; she then inspires the reader with a number of practical and low-cost garden schemes that include herbs. Finally, a directory of herbs enables you to identify and select the rights ones for your garden, giving you a renewed enthusiasm and zest for planting.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published May 7, 2004

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holmes plainly knows her herbs, and her text is full of practical advice and interesting historical and mythological tidbits. I think she specializes in medieval and Tudor gardens and lore, so that was just delightful.

It’s fairly stream-consciousness, not particularly well organized, and the subheadings don’t actually indicate a related thought. So the reader is in for a bit of a ride.

I always prefer if the pictures on a page describe the same plants as the text, which these don’t especially. You have to read the captions to have any idea what’s going on in the picture. But, I enjoyed it and would like to visit some of the featured gardens and came away full of ideas for my own garden.

[K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty, but not the herb garden book I'm looking to add to my collection. I'm thankful for the library so i can look before I buy. :-)

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Style and drama in the garden does not exclude the useful.